I'm confused. What's this actually got to do with avoidance? I know you'll have read the HMRC press release because you always thoroughly fact-check your posts, but it doesn't seem to mention the A word at all. Do you and Tyler have another source?

You also lost me with '"Innocent, until proven guilty" is a basic principle of English [criminal] law...'. Again, have you read something elsewhere that makes this in some way relevant to this story? Has there, for example, been a change of policy wrt the assumptions compliance officers (or inspectors, as they used to be called!) are supposed to adopt at the start of an intervention? All very confusing!

Well, surely it's "HMRC speak" for a range of things that includes evasion and mistakes leading to under-declaration of liability, as well as schemes designed to legally produce a result different from that intended by Parliament.

However, as this appears to be about SMEs (I say this because it doesn't seem to fit with the CRM-led approach to larger businesses), which very rarely enter into such schemes (because only those with the resources can afford the pricey fees involved), I strongly suspect this is far more about looking for evasion and errors.

The strategy for dealing with schemes designed to legally produce a result different from that intended by Parliament is heavily (possibly overly) reliant on DOTAS, so while they'll no doubt follow up any such schemes they find as part of this initiative (and why shouldn't they?), it's very unlikely that this is a central aim of the initiative.